For the first new episode of the year, CSI: Miami asks the question: What if Hannah Montana pulled a Michael Jackson? Let’s be honest–Jackson’s notorious hair fire of 1984 is now pop culture legend. Montana is a current legend. The actress/singer in this week’s episode may be named Phoenix, but we all know who she’s standing in for.
In the opening shots of “Show Stopper,” Phoenix and her band are rocking the house. The choreography is great, the tune is good, and she looks hot, especially when she catches on fire mid-song. She falls dead on stage. Quick as a flash, the EMTs are there, whisking away the still-alive body of Phoenix. Ferris Bueller’s friend, Cameron, is there (Alan Ruck), and he’s keeping the press at bay. But he can’t hold back Horatio Caine. The lieutenant moves forward, with Dr. Tom, the ME, and investigates the body. Uh-oh, Dr. Tom says, the fire didn’t kill Phoenix. She was already dead.
With that puzzler, the CSI: Miami team is off. Jesse, Ryan, and Calleigh investigate the crime scene, interviewing the pyrotechnics guy who seemed to blow up stuff “by the book.” Phoenix’s make-up lady told Calleigh that the bronzing make-up was worn every show. It’s also, Calleigh tells her, an accelerant. Ryan collects cell phones from the grieving throng outside the arena.
Rick Stetler makes an appearance in this episode. He’s calling Calleigh on a mileage discrepancy on her expense report. She waffles, apparently trying to hide the fact that she loaned the car to Jesse. She tells Rick she’ll figure it out. He gives her a one-day deadline.
After determining Walter is a fan of Phoenix, Ryan and Walter find evidence of copper wiring in Phoenix’s dress. It’s part of a stun gun and it helps Dr. Tom with his pronouncement that Phoenix died of a heart attack. However, the body on the slab isn’t Phoebe Nichols, the young woman who took the stage name Phoenix. It’s Vanessa Patton, a back-up dancer and dead (heh) ringer for Phoebe/Phoenix. Horatio calls Julian Teal, the manager, on the fraud. Julian tells Horatio that Phoebe bailed on him. That may be, but it’s still fraud.
Phoebe’s mom and former manager wants to see her estranged daughter. Calleigh doesn’t know where she is but vows to find out. The IT guy in the lab does with all the confiscated cell phones what Batman did with them in The Dark Knight, namely uses all the images to reconstruct the concert. What they see astounds them: Adam Lambert! Well, not really, but the young man is dressed to look like him. Robbie is Phoenix’s Number One Fan (uh-oh), and he just wanted to get back a bracelet from Vanessa the Fake Phoenix. He professes that Phoebe promised him a managing gig but fame changed her. Jesse and Ryan aren’t buying it, but Robbie, in his most assertive, teenaged voice blurts out that he’d tell them if he knew who killed Phoenix.
After a little web surfing, Calleigh and Jesse locate a house owned by Phoenix’s company. After a testy exchange regarding the mileage discrepancy, they discover none other than Phoebe herself, drugged and held captive. Suspicions falls back to Alan Ruck’s hyper doctor who confesses that his job was to drug her for the three to four months (!) of the current Phoenix tour. Again, Julian the slimeball manager throws up the “I’m just doing business” curtain. Horatio just moves forward.
The wound on Phoebe’s arm is, in fact, the incision where a GPS device was implanted. The unit is still active, and it goes back to the mom! She’d been ostracized by Julian, and this was the only way she could keep tabs on her daughter. Interspersed in this action is Phoebe coming to terms with her fame, Vanessa’s murder, and the desire to go back in time and just sing for the joy of singing. Calleigh’s there with her, taking a big sisterly role here. This kind of thing is usually reserved for Horatio, and it’s great to see another character step up.
“Adam Lamber” gets tagged with the ownership of the stun gun (after tracing the serial number on the electrodes) and lets slip that “We” just wanted to expose Vanessa the Fake Phoenix. Oops! Well, the other half of the “we” was…the Mom!
Up until the end of the episode, we had a pretty darn good story. The final scene takes it up to eleven. Jesse and Calleigh are alone in the police locker room. Calleigh confronts Jesse, telling him she can’t trust him. She badgers him into revealing what he did with the police vehicle. He confesses he used it to follow a woman. The man she is with, he says, is very dangerous. This man killed his wife by slitting her throat so deep that she was almost decapitated.
Calleigh understands. “He’s in Miami.”
Jesse looses the bombshell. “He also killed my wife.” He turns and walks away. Calleigh is left alone, stunned into silence, Emily Proctor’s face clearly showing the shock and disbelief and grief Calleigh is entitled to. Brilliant ending, and I’m looking forward to further developments with this story arc.
I’m also glad to see, in the trailer for next week, that the writers are following up with Natalia Boa Vista (no-show in Monday’s episode) and her hearing loss injury suffered when she and Ryan were in a drug dealer’s house when it exploded. Too often, television writers let interesting aspects of characters fall by the wayside, kinda like Horatio’s son from last season (where’s he been this season?).
I thoroughly enjoyed Monday’s episode. A VCR snafu delayed me watching it until Tuesday evening (thus, this recap is a day late). I have to admit: watching the episode via CBS.com and my laptop sans commercials wasn’t a bad thing. Perhaps the future of television is changing.
What did you like about Monday’s episode? How’d you take Calleigh’s larger role in the episode? And did you get a feeling that Horatio distanced himself from Phoebe towards the end of the episode?
I did enjoy this episode and did not compare the fallen star to a recently departed pop icon. I did compare Jesse’s story to OJ, however. I am also looking forward to finding out more of his story. Now that Calleigh is not fixated on Delko, she seems more “on the ball”.Since her emotions are calling for more than doe-eyed adoration, Emily Proctor is showing she has the chops for the job. This is the Calleigh I like to see.
While I thought Horatio was a strong presence during Caruso’s time on screen, his role seems to diminish with every episode. We need to see more of him as well as more of Frank and Natalia. There was an exchange of dialog that I thoroughly enjoyed and cannot remember — frustrating but not surprising. It dealt with puppies and dogs and Horatio delivered the punch line. If anyone who remembers it cares to enlighten me, I would be appreciative, otherwise I’ll just have to watch the episode again (poor me)!
I heard rumbles that Kyle’s absence would eventually be explained by saying he enlisted and is in Iraq. Are they setting daddy up for another death?
Regarding Phoebe’s poignant finale: I did not get the idea that Horatio was distancing himself from her. I thought he knew he was looking at someone who was literally rising from the ashes and this time would be lighting her own fires.
What they see astounds them: Adam Lambert! <– LOOOOOOL MY FACE: O____O